Old Bay tastes phenomenal on everything, maybe even ice cream. As Crabby Shack masterminds Gwendolyn Woods and Fifi Clanton reminded food likers during their recent appearance on First We Feast's "Food Skills" series, the Old Bay spice blend is also a crucial part of the experience of ingesting decapod crustaceans.
"My father is from the Chesapeake Bay area, and so every time he'd go down and visit home, he would come back up to New York with a bushel of crabs," Woods recalled of her childhood introduction to crab. "The family would all get together and spend the whole day cracking blue crab."
For the Crabby Shack take on crab, Clanton explained, they've melded a variety of wide-spanning regional influences into their own unique approach. "Our take on crabs is we basically cook the crabs in beer, and then drizzle it with the garlic butter," Clanton said. "And then we sprinkle it with Old Bay. So it's a combination, but we put our own flavor to it, so now it's Brooklyn."
Clanton then generously broke down the most economic way of consuming Crabby Shack's Alaskan snow crab platter. First, Clanton suggested, set the claw aside for last. The merus (described by Clanton as the "sweetest" part of the experience) should be broken at the knuckles, but not all the way. According to Clanton, the merus should also be first up for consumption. Clanton strongly advised against wasting a single piece of the meat, adding that a crab cracker should be used discriminately during the process.
For more crab tips, peep the rest of the Crabby Shack duo's advice in the crab-filled video up top.
